I know this has been making the rounds online for about a week now, but I felt like it was as good a reason as any to get out the old PotterWatch feature. Yes, for a local contest in Vancouver, a group of friends put together a funny video of the Harry Potter series in just 60 seconds. Some of the other entries (which were also movies done in 60 seconds) were entertaining, but I have to give HP in 60 credit for taking 7 stories and 8 movies and putting them into those 60 seconds … that takes guts and a fair amount of cleverness. Plus, they went goofy on it, which gave it a hell of a lot of charm.

So … lots of screaming and Harry isn’t actually dead … yep, that sounds about right. Maybe the only thing I can criticize them for is that they changed around where Sirius’ death is in the story. I know it’s a minor problem, but that bugged me. However, when I stumbled upon the cast list on the video’s actual youtube page, it credits a Dumbledore 1 and a Dumbledore 2. That’s right … this 60 second film (and yes, it’s 60 seconds on the nose) paralleled the actual franchise by recasting Dumbledore. I just hope it wasn’t because the first Dumbledore died during filming. That would be sad. And inconvenient for such a short shoot. I also liked that Voldemort was played by a balloon.

Anyway, it was a very clever short and if you feel like voting for them, please do while the contest is still going on.